Against the Odds

by Elizabeth Moon

  "Ears?" Goonar said. "Now I wonder . . ."

  "What?"

  "Basil . . . remember what Esmay said? Rumors that the mutineers were followers of Lepescu and took ears as battle prizes?"

  "So . . . he is a mutineer."

  "Might be. I suppose pirates might take ears, too. But I wish we'd gotten his name."

  "We have some of his ID, anyway," Basil said. He could have laughed at the shock on Goonar's face.

  "How? He didn't come all the way in, or sit down."

  "No—but he did put his hands on the doorframe, and I don't think he was wearing gloves. And—since he conveniently stood in one place—I was able to reconfigure the office scans to pick him up. If you're thinking of making points with the Stationmaster, we can call up—"

  "Not the Stationmaster," Goonar said. "Fleet. But do something, Bas, to protect those prints on the door . . . that fellow just might come back and smear them himself, if he thinks of it."

  "Right." Basil moved to the door and glanced out. There he was again, headed their way, but stopping short when Basil appeared. Basil lounged there, putting his own hand on the doorframe, but a handspan higher than the other man's, and stared him down. This was fun. This was almost as much fun as rearranging the man's face, which he hoped to have the chance for later. If he was smashing up a mutineer, no one could object too much. Finally the man shrugged, and turned away, ducking into one of the little shopping arcades that opened onto the main concourse.

  "Call now," Basil said over his shoulder to Goonar. "Your instincts were right; he was on his way back."

  "I'm assuming you didn't put your hand in the same place," Goonar said.

  "Not me. I've been in enough rows to know better."

  "Trust you to know . . . I wonder if it fooled him. I'm putting on full security," Goonar added, and then nothing more. Basil assumed he was on the com, talking to Fleet, but no sound came through the security screen. Basil busied himself in the little waiting area outside the office, bustling in and out, carrying and stacking cartons. Assuming he was under surveillance, he managed to bump or touch the doorframe repeatedly, each time avoiding the area where the other man's hands had—he hoped—left their prints.

  He was running out of ways to rearrange the same few cartons, when someone hailed him from outside the line. "Terakian Fortune!"

  "Yes?" Basil said, turning around. Two men in Fleet uniform. Great. Now the mysterious stranger would know they'd snitched.

  "Did you transport a former Fleet officer named Esmay Suiza?" the taller of the two asked loudly.

  "Suiza? Why?" asked Basil, feeling as surly as he sounded.

  "We're trying to find her," the man said. "I'm Commander Tavard. You know there's a mutiny on?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, Fleet's recalling all former officers, and offering them commissions again. Anyway—we were told Esmay Suiza was a passenger of yours—is that right?"

  "Suiza of Altiplano?" That from a dockside idler. "The hero of Xavier?"

  Commander Tavard's eyes rolled, and the corner of his mouth twitched. "The very same," he said. Then, to Basil, "Could we come aboard and talk to your captain? Or Suiza, if she's here?"

  "She's not here at the moment, but our captain is. He may know where she's gone. Follow me." Basil flicked on the perimeter security, which wasn't by any means as good as that in the office, but would foil the idlers.

  "Anything we shouldn't touch?" Commander Tavard asked, in a quieter voice.

  Basil grinned to himself. So this wasn't about Esmay . . . it was the answer to Goonar's call. "Right through here," he said, opening the office door with an extravagant gesture and waving them in—the waving arm happening to protect the side of the doorframe with the prints.

  "Captain," Basil said, though Goonar was already on his feet, alert. "This is Commander Tavard, come to ask us about Esmay Suiza. He says they want her back in Fleet."

  "Glad to meet you, Commander," Goonar said. Basil noticed at once that the office security screen was off, and raised an eyebrow at Goonar, who shook his head. "Sera Suiza's a fine young woman; it beat me why she was discharged."

  "A misunderstanding," Commander Tavard said. He nodded to the other man, without introducing him, and the man opened his case and removed the sort of equipment Basil had seen Station security use to gather evidence. "It should never have happened. But we couldn't trace her, at first. I know you listed her on your departure manifest, but quite frankly no one thought to check the manifests for general cargo vessels. The local command was sure she'd rented a yacht under an assumed name, or something."

  Basil watched the shorter man apply a strip of some translucent material to the entire doorpost on the correct side, without revealing anything that could be seen from dockside. He himself stood where he could see through the narrow opening he'd left. He had to admire the cover story the commander had come up with. When the second man had peeled the strip away, sprayed it with a fixative, and coiled it neatly into an evidence pouch, Basil handed him the data cube that Goonar pointed out—a copy, no doubt, of their original scan data.

  "I can understand why you'd want her back," Goonar said, "But she's not here."

  "Is she coming back? Did she leave any luggage?"

  "No—she told us she was going downside, to Fleet Headquarters on Castle Rock itself. I think she was hoping to get back in, somehow."

  "If so, they haven't informed us yet. But I'll make a few calls and see. Oh, by the way, you might want to be on your guard for mutineers trying to make contact with civilian ships; we've had some reports of attacks that might be piracy or might be mutineer activity. You'll be getting a Fleet advisory in the next day or so, when we've refined the data, but I strongly advise you to stick to only green routes, even if you normally use a few yellows to save time. And if anyone approaches you, wanting a fast or secret passage, I hope you'll let us know."

  "Of course," Goonar said, grinning at the commander. "But—I don't suppose there's a reward in it . . . ?"

  "No," the commander, grinning back, managed to sound prim and disapproving anyway. "I would think your own self-interest would lead you to do the right thing. If these mutineers start robbing ships because of information they get from you civilian captains, you'll wish you hadn't been so greedy."

  Goonar nodded his appreciation of that speech and launched into a suitable reply. "I don't call it greedy," he said. "I call it making a decent profit from risk, which you people don't have to worry about, with all your expenses paid for you, by taxes on me."

  "I'm not going to argue with you," the commander said. "I just hope you'll do the right thing . . . or you'll regret it someday."

  The two men left, trailed by Basil and Goonar; the commander turned at dockside. "If you see Suiza, please let us know. And remember what I said—"

  "I'll remember," Goonar said. "You take care of your precious Fleet, and let us get on with our trading." When the two men had walked out of sight, he turned to Basil. "What a lot of pompous twits they are," he said. "As if I didn't know how to spot troublemakers myself." He led the way back into the office, and Basil followed, wondering who had been in the audience for that little playlet, and how they'd taken it.

  * * *

  Castle Rock, Appledale private shuttle field

  * * *

  "Sorry to be so secretive," Brun said. "But this second assassination has every conspiracy theorist going crazy. Even though the Benignity's claimed responsibility—"

  "They have?"

  "Oh, yes. Very formally, in the Grand Council. Apparently they inserted an assassin by having him impersonate a fencing instructor."

  "A fencing instructor?" Esmay's mind raced, wondering why the head of the Grand Council would have wanted to learn how to build fences.

  "Swordfighting," Kate said. "That kind of fencing." She grinned at Esmay. "Fooled me, too, the first time I heard it."

  "So anyway, that was fantastic enough, so of course a lot of people didn't believe it," Brun said
. "They thought maybe our family had done it to get back at Hobart for having my father killed."

  "He did?" Esmay felt she'd somehow missed more than a month or so of time and was being yanked into the future at high speed. "I didn't hear anything about that—"

  "Actually, he didn't. Not directly. It was one of his hangers-on, who hoped to curry favor with him."

  "Wait—" Esmay held up her hand. "Your father was shot, wasn't he? Or was he stabbed with a sword, too?"

  "Shot, yes. And everyone thought it was the NewTex Militia, only it wasn't. But Pedar—the man who had it done—gave enough hints to Lady Cecelia—do you know Lady Cecelia?"

  Esmay said, "No, but I've heard of her. Who is Pedar?"

  "An idiot," Brun said. "A distant relative of Hobart Conselline's and a pain in the rear. Hobart made him Minister of Foreign Affairs."

  "So—if you know he did it, what have you done about him?"

  Brun and Kate exchanged glances. "That's another of the difficult bits," Brun said. "My mother killed him—by accident—during a fencing match."

  Esmay took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Your mother killed her husband's murderer by accident?"

  "That's what the report said," Brun said. "Mother's foil broke, leaving a sharp point, and Pedar's mask failed. Of course, there are people who don't believe that, either. The timing couldn't have been worse, from the family's point of view."

  One failure might be accident . . . two failures made a suspicious coincidence. Esmay said nothing and waited.

  "It was an old foil," Brun went on. "An antique. I don't know why they were fencing with antiques. Probably Pedar; he was like that. He thought old meant stylish."

  "And then it broke," Esmay prompted.

  "Yes. As near as we can tell, Pedar died several days before Hobart was assassinated—you know how it is with relative time between systems. Lady Cecelia arrived just after it happened."

  Another handy coincidence. Esmay thought of her one glimpse of Lady Thornbuckle, the day Brun had come back to Rockhouse Major . . . the slim, elegant woman who had seemed far too tame a mother for someone like Brun. Maybe not . . .

  "So some people blame your family because both this Pedar and the Speaker were killed with swords?"

  "It's more than that," Brun said. "We're in the Barraclough Sept, you know, and Hobart was a Conselline." Esmay didn't interrupt to explain that she had no idea what a sept was. "There used to be five septs, but now there are just two. All the Families—the Seated Families—have aggregated into these two. They're rivals economically and politically. The Consellines lost prestige and also profit when the Morrelline mess on Patchcock came out—about the rejuvenation drugs."

  "Rejuvenation drugs?"

  "Yes—it was right after the battle at Xavier. I guess you'd have been tied up in legal matters. But—to make a long story short—the Morrelline pharmaceutical plants on Patchcock were making rejuv drugs and using a cut-rate process that produced inferior product. There was a lot of other stuff involved—a Benignity agent, abuse of workers—but it meant that the Morrelline brothers lost control of the family company to their sister Venezia, and profits dropped like a stone. Rejuvenation pharmacology had been their main cash cow, and the reason they had so much influence in the Conselline Sept."

  Esmay's mind grabbed at the fact relevant to her experience. "Wait—bad rejuvenation drugs? Do you know if any of them were bought for Fleet?"

  "As a matter of fact, yes. Apparently Fleet had noticed some problem with rejuvenation of senior NCOs—"

  "Yes," Esmay said. "We certainly did."

  "Hobart wanted market share back; when he became Speaker, he stifled the discussion and research, and started pushing rejuvenation in the open market again. The Benignity claims that's why they killed him."

  "And in the meantime," Kate put in, "Brun's uncle was trying to grab her father's inheritance, on the grounds that he was not of sound mind, because he sent Fleet to get Brun away from the NewTex Militia."

  "We thought we finally had things under control," Brun said. "Before the two deaths, we'd found evidence that my uncle had intimidated other family members into giving him their proxy or leaving him their shares. The court upheld my father's will, and Harlis is under investigation. But now—"

  "It's a mess," Kate said.

  "I can see why," Esmay said. "And then the mutiny."

  "Yes. The Consellines would probably declare open war on the Barracloughs if they had the military to do it with, but so far the loyalists in Fleet are holding firm." Kate paused. "The mutineers . . . we hear rumors that some of them have offered their services to various families, including the Consellines."

  "Mercenaries," Esmay said.

  "Yup." Kate sounded oddly cheerful; Esmay reminded herself that this was not Kate's home. "Here's the house."

  Appledale reminded Esmay a little of the big house on the Suiza estancia: large, surrounded by gardens and orchards and outbuildings. Inside, Brun led the way to a room that overlooked a walled garden and swimming pool.

  "Now, Esmay, let's hear your news," she said, settling into a chintz-covered easy chair.

  Esmay made the story as brief as she could: the quarrel with Admiral Serrano, the emergency call announcing the mutiny, her hasty marriage to Barin while in transit to their new assignments, her abrupt dismissal from Fleet.

  "That doesn't sound like her," Brun said, frowning. "She's a Serrano, yes—the temper and all that—but I found her fair. She has to know that whatever happened hundreds of years ago isn't your fault."

  Esmay shrugged. "It's a matter of honor, she said."

  "Honor," Brun said, "is highly overrated. At least when it makes people do stupid things."

  "We think a lot of honor on Altiplano," Esmay said. "And in Fleet."

  Brun waved her hand. "There's honor and honor. I'm thinking of the stupid kind, like children taking dares. Not that I didn't—but I wasn't using my head when I did."

  "Leaving honor out of it," Kate said, obviously determined to head off an impasse, "why do you think Admiral Serrano changed her mind and kicked you out?"

  "Because I was told Admiral Serrano had signed the order," Esmay said.

  Brun shrugged. "There's lots of admirals Serrano. Maybe it wasn't Barin's grandmother after all. I liked her, even if she was a bit scary."

  "A bit—!" Esmay thought of the cold eyes that had been so full of enmity. "But it must have been Vida Serrano . . . who else would do it if she didn't want it done?"

  "Stupidity and confusion," Kate said. "Happens all the time in big organizations. Someone thought he could make Barin's grandmother happy by canning you, not knowing that she'd changed her mind. Who else was at this family meeting?"

  "I didn't even get to meet them all," Esmay said.

  "What you need," Brun said, "is a good lawyer. I can use my influence, but we need help. Kevil Mahoney's the obvious one. I think he's still getting his new arm grown in, but if he can't do it, he still has contacts who can help us. And perhaps we should move into town for a while. I don't think it'll be that much harder to secure the town house than Appledale. I'll call George."

  * * *

  Breitis Rehabilitation Pavilion, Limb Unit

  * * *

  Kevil Mahoney grinned as Brun and Esmay came in to his room at the rehab center. "I was wondering if that was your cheerful voice I heard coming down the hall," he said to Brun. "And this is the redoubtable Lt. Suiza, no doubt."

  "Not a lieutenant any more, sir," Esmay said.

  "What'd you do, Brun, poison her mind with your anti-discipline nonsense?"

  "Uncle Kevil!" Brun sounded only half amused. "She was kicked out unfairly. We have to do something."

  He raised an eyebrow. "You mean you want me to do something."

  "To start with, to listen to the whole story. Go ahead, Esmay."

  This seemed brusque at best, but Kevil nodded to Esmay. "Go on, then."

  Esmay retold the story, beginning with Admiral Serrano's a
ttack on her. Kevil listened with his eyes closed—she wondered if he were dozing off—but when she finished, he opened them, and began asking questions. The same questions as Brun and Kate, at first, and then more and more, questions that had never occurred to her. Altiplano's trade policy? She knew nothing about it. Altiplano's association with the Crescent Worlds? Nothing, so far as she knew. The Emeralds? Esmay felt that he was dragging out of her everything she knew, had assumed, or even imagined, about her home world. Finally he stopped.

  "Interesting." He closed his eyes again. Esmay took the chance to get a drink of water. "Very interesting indeed," he said when he opened his eyes again. "I was talking to Bunny about this sort of thing, before he died. We were both aware that the underlying structure of the Familias Regnant had not kept pace with the spatial and population growth."

  "In what way?" Brun asked.

  "Well . . . when you come right down to it, the Familias began as a commercial consortium dedicated to profit . . . a consortium that agreed to pool resources to control space piracy, which was cutting into everyone's profits. And if that sounds like a government to you, Brun, it's because your very expensive finishing school taught you more about social graces than social sciences."

  "But aren't governments always designed for the profit of the citizens?" Esmay asked.

  "Good gracious, no! Where'd you get that idea? Altiplano, of course, one of the grand social experiments of history . . . sorry, didn't mean to be sarcastic." Kevil hitched himself around in bed, grunting. "Blast this thing—I want to move my shoulder, and I know I can't, not for another twenty-three hours and sixteen minutes."

  "That soon?"

  "That long. It feels like forever—but this is an interesting distraction. It's certainly not often that two beautiful young women have come to me to listen to a lecture on legal history."

  "Don't be silly, Uncle Kevil," Brun said.

  "I'm not. I'm quite serious, and I hope you will be, you young scamp. It's time to grow up, Charlotte Brunnhilde—you, and me, and the entire Familias. We're like a child who's been playing games in a large walled garden. Now we're outside, and it's not make-believe."